Lucifer
by magistrate
Summary: Chronicles subset, Dark Legion spoilers. Dyne considers himself, his power, and his worst enemies.
1. Dyne Ascendant

_...his Pride  
Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his Host  
Of Rebel Angels, by whose aid aspiring  
To set himself in Glory above his Peers,  
He trusted to have equal'd the most High,  
If he oppos'd... _

- John Milton, Paradise Lost

* * *

_  
She is standing facing him, and more eyes are on her than she knows. Hidden, veiled by a curtain of memory and time, he can watch her and never be watched in return._

_He has come here so many times before... watching, always watching. Trying to know something he cannot understand. She is the Enemy, the Rival---a part of him says this, over and over. But she is not the one he is watching._

_He is watching the one she is facing--the one in whose memories he is resting incognito--like a slide show he slides the memories back and forth under mental fingertips, undetectable in the presence of small gods and mnemovores. So fascinating, this boy's memories--so terrifying._

_"Oh, what an easy life it must be," the Rival says, that face so used to smiling **frowning** now, eyes hurt and not understanding what he could understand too well, "just to follow orders..."_

_The memories slid back and forth, back and forth like an invisible pendulum, the arc defining the whole. (Rinoa,) he responded--not **then**, never **then**, because **that** was too **true** to be answered... (Rinoa,) he thought, still unwilling to open himself to her, still unwilling to tell her what he so desperately needed her to hear--(Even if you end up as the world's enemy, I'll... I'll be your Knight.)_

_"Call it what you want," he had said, but he had never **answered**--"All we want is for you to achieve your goal."_

_Achieve your goal. Such a simple phrase. Such simple words._

_"...achieve your goal using our help."_

_"How sad... Act on my decision? That's your duty?"_

_(Oh, what an easy life it must be...)_

-

He woke up with blood on his hands where there had been no blood before, but that was no small matter for a Sorcerer and he didn't wonder where it had come from. Old blood had a habit of resurfacing, these days--_this_ blood wasn't real, not as so much blood before had been. 

He stood up, stripped himself to the waist, and bathed in the cold dawn air. It felt good, somehow--right and at the same time terrible--to stand like that, heart exposed to the world where a knife or a bullet could make short work of him. Not that he would ever allow that--not that he had nearly the courage to face death.

Not his own, anyway.

But, really, there was _death_ all around him, and the land was cracked and shattered.

_(This is the Darkness,)_ he thought, looking deep into himself in the cloudy reflection of a dirty mirror, cradling the power within him like a sickly, whispering child--one that he had to hold and reassure, even it might mean catching the sickness himself. _(I bear the light... fero lucem. I bear the Light, and with such power comes... such dire things.)_

He stared at himself, looking at his own eyes, his own hair--all the things that were so subtly changing. His own mother--and who was _she_, again?--wouldn't recognize him now. He never recognized himself.

_(I,)_ he thought, _(am the Descendent of Hyne, inheritor of His immortal power--the prodigal son, usurper of things meant for the daughter.)_

"Hyne's Descendent," he said, and then said it over and over in a sort of pessimistic tongue-twister. "Hyne's descendent, Hyne's descynedent, Dyne's hescendent--"

--and he caught himself, grinning at the flash of white teeth made grey by the mirror.

"_Dyne's_ hescendent, _Dyne_, ascendant!" _(I am the bearer of light which was stolen for me from Hyne's true daughters, wrenched from the true Dyne Ascendant. I am the mugger, murderer and rapist, and there is a peace in this certainty. I am the Damned.)_

He was still smiling into the mirror, and even though he knew that it was wholly inappropriate, he continued to do so anyway.

-

_(That's your duty?)_

SeeD was formed to destroy the Sorceress. That much, everyone knew.

_(Even if you became the world's enemy, I'll...)_

Squall Leonhart was the Commander of SeeD. That much, everyone knew.

_(...I'll be your Knight.)_

Squall Leonhart was the guardian--body, mind, and _soul_--of the last true Sorceress. That much, only Dyne knew.

_(What an easy life it must be.)_

And he didn't know what he felt at that. A part of it was terror _(I am not afraid!)_--that much he could understand. Leonhart _(Leonhart, lion's heart, heart-of-the-lion...)_ could kill him--it could be ordered that _that_ was his duty. Kill the Sorceress--and if the Sorceress wasn't available for killing, say if the Sorceress had taken up your soul and your love and you owed her everything, then the Sorcerer would do just as well.

But a part of him, so much deeper, so much _stronger_ and more subtle, watched from within itself, coiled in what he could only call envy.

He had a father and did not know he had a father; this Dyne did not envy. _(And who **is** a father, anyway...? Lammers was a father, perhaps, but where is he now?)_

He was in something deeper than love and would not even admit to himself that it was love; this Dyne did not envy. _(And I loved her, and I loved her, and I killed her, and I killed her...)_

He knew who he was when he looked into the mirror, and he was not afraid that he would close his eyes and never again would the same person open them; _this_ Dyne envied--but only a little.

Dyne looked deeper into him every day, and told himself that he was sizing up an enemy--a dangerous beast, a terrible enemy he would one day slay, and had to understand. And he would not admit to himself that he was terrified of the prospect...

He called it envy, because he would not--_could_ not--admit to himself what it was.

-

The Serpent was caged, caged so tightly in the back of his mind that there was no escaping--no thought, no murmur, could escape. But Dyne would reach back and brush it with trembling mental fingers, afraid that it had passed away. Like a treasure that he would keep forever and never find a way to use, simple possession seemed to be the most important concern of any there could be. 

But sometimes, like a delicious temptation, he would surrender to the urge to look at the serpent again--to reassure himself that it existed and he _had _it--to let it get a glimpse of him as he looked at it, staring deep into a consciousness far deeper and darker than his own.

_Lucem Fero_, it addressed him, and its tone was mocking--undefeated by captivity, undaunted and enraging. _(I will have you,)_ a part of Dyne screamed, _(I will have you and you will not mock me, for I shall make you **mine**--)_

"I am the bearer of light," he said to himself in a spoken confirmation. "And I am Dyne Ascendant."

_You are Lucem Fero,_ the serpent replied, _the name of an ancient injustice._

_(I am the mugger, murderer and rapist.)_ "You are more ancient than I am."

_You are the Bearer of Light, and the Light far precedes me. Given that, all Bearers are equal._

"You are mine," he whispers, as if whispering it could make it true.

_I am not the one you want_, the serpent responds cooly--smiling in a serpent kind of way, one that said "You have been lying to everyone and yourself, but I will tell the truth." _I am not the one you need. You have me, and it is nothing._

"I don't need anyone," he whispered. "I don't _want _anyone."

_You want someone more than you can express_, the serpent told him. _All all you have to do is **reach** and **take**. But you won't do that, will you?_

_(I do not want anyone, and I will make you **mine**, never to taunt me or tempt me again--)_ "You," he said sternly and shakingly, "are a tempter and a deceiver."

_And you,_ the serpent replied, _are a liar and a fool, covetous Dyne Ascendant, Lucem Fero._

_(Lucem Fero means "I bear the light,")_ he thought, _(not "Bearer of Light.)_ But he said nothing.

He pushed the serpent away, and the last thing he heard was a hissing hating _laughing_. And, with a shudder and a whimper, he vowed once again _(I shall make you mine.)_

-

_Leonhart is sworn to kill the Sorceress, and the Sorceress knows this. She knows this better than he knows this, and what is more, she understands._

_"Squall's sword will pierce my heart," she says, and her face is made beautiful by the terrible acceptance._

_His is not. He is at ten different kinds of war with himself, and in none is she the enemy. Even if she became the **world**'s enemy--_

_"All we want is for you to achieve your goal using our help."_

_She would like to look disgusted, but she does not. She looks hurt, shaken, betrayed by some naive belief._

_"Don't you ever worry about or even **think** about the well-being of your comrades!"_

_(I don't believe in relying on others.)_

_Oh, what an easy life. "Don't you understand!" Squall's sword will pierce my heart--_

_(...whatever.)_

_He will never, ever hurt her. Sincerely, he believes that he will die before he does._

_Sincerely, Dyne believes so, too._

-

Dipping into Leonhart's mind was like dipping into wine--one could become lost and forget oneself so very easily in the time between one memory and the next. And, when Dyne _did_ come back to himself, the sensation was...troubling. Something akin to putting on a filthy robe after taking a long bath. 

He stepped into his own mind apprehensively, feeling the sickly magic and the sleeping serpent within him. And, cradling himself in the warmth of thin blankets, he thought again to himself _(I am Dyne Ascendant.)_

And all the world wished him dead. _(Not that I became the world's enemy--)_

And he was terrified.

_Only your death should please us_, the sleeping-waking serpent said, and his cold calm reason seemed to stop Dyne's heart. _There is no room in the world for Sorcerers and Guardian Forces._

_(Then I shall make you mine--)_ "Sorcery is absolute and interminable," he protested. "It will remain until the stars themselves die. _You_ are mortal."

_Humans are mortal, and you are still human. But **we** are not human... any more._

"Why do you want to kill me?" he moaned. "I've never done anything to you."

_No_, the serpent agreed, making a mockery of him and his sad attempt to imprison a beast he could not hope to contain. _But you could, perhaps._

"Perhaps? _Perhaps_?" He pulled the fabric tighter around him, trying to reduce the world to himself and the blankets. "All the world hates me. Because I _could_ do something? Because I _might_?"

_That is the truth of Sorcery,_ the serpent hissed. _You **are** the world's enemy. And it is not for anything you have done, but for anything you **may**._

"No. _Please_..."

_This much is absolute,_ the serpent said, and smiled in such a serpent way.

-

_"SeeD will come kill me, right?" She is beautiful and hatable, standing so perfectly and mocking him so well. "And the leader of SeeD is you, Squall..."_

_She bears the Light. Does she not? Does she not fear death?_

_"Squall's sword will pierce my heart."_

_(Even if you end up as the world's enemy...) "I'll never do anything like that."_

_"It's OK if it's you, Squall. Nobody else."_

_"...the sorceress I'm after is not you, Rinoa." The prospect of her death terrifies him._

_The prospect of her life terrifies Dyne._

_"It doesn't mean anything. Don't worry about it."_

_"How sad... that's your duty?" SeeD was formed to kill the Sorceress. Squall Leonhart is a SeeD._

_(I'll be your Knight.)_

_How sad..._

_-_

He did not love Squall. He found it insufferable that Squall might not love _him_. 

Squall would never love him, because he was not the Sorceress. _(I am Dyne Ascendant--)_

--and where love could not exist, he would settle for one of two things--absolute fealty, or death.

_(And the three are, really, the same thing.)_

_Covetous Dyne Ascendant._

"He should die before he should hurt me," Dyne said to the emptiness.

_He will kill you before he dies,_ the serpent replied.

"I have no knight."

_You deserve no Knight._

"I..."

_You shall have no Knight._

"I _want him_."

_He cares nothing for **you**._

"I _want him_, and I shall _make him **mine**_."

_He will kill you before he dies,_ the serpent--tempter and deceiver--said again. _He and his Sorceress._

"I will kill him before he kills me. He will _die_ before he hurts me," _(what an easy life it must be...)_

_You_, the serpent laughed, _are a liar and a fool, Lucem Fero._

Dyne shuddered, and could not stop. "_You_," he whispered, do not bear the light."


	2. Covet Not

_Fondness it were for any being free, __  
To covet fetters, though they golden be. _  
  
- Edmund Spenser

* * *

_He dipped down into Leonhart's mind and drank up what he saw like a Communion, let the memories wash over him like an ablution. He could convince himself, sometimes, that this boy's mind was a mirror--that if he looked hard enough, he would see himself somewhere. That if Leonhart looked back, he would see someone familiar.  
  
If Leonhart looked back, he would see the Enemy.  
  
A part of him knew this--the knowledge rested within him, a cold hard certainty that rested heavily against his stomach like the intruding blade of a knife. And every time he twisted away from it, it only hurt more--it followed him, tainting the flavour of memory and driving him towards despair._

-

Dyne always woke up afraid, but the barren silence of the ruined country had not threatened him... yet.  
  
He stood and walked outside, his heart making light little tremors of meaningless trepidation. In the first few moments of waking, he was always afraid of disappearing--of being subsumed by the world, becoming something of no more importance than any one of a million cracks in the parched ground.  
  
"The bearer of the light casts the deepest shadows," he said, balancing himself with one foot firmly before the other. "That is his greatest curse."  
  
_Of course,_ the serpent hissed into his mind, _it could be argued that way._  
  
Dyne faltered, his precise balance interrupted. "...what other way is there?"  
  
_It could be counted your greatest strength._  
  
"The darkness?"  
  
_You think that power comes from light, Lucem Fero._ The serpent laughed. _You never considered that you might also bear the darkness._  
  
"The darkness is--the darkness is not something that is _borne_. It simply _is_."  
  
_It follows you shade-like,_ the serpent asserted, _and sweeps your path behind you. It is your legacy, and the legacy of all of Hyne's descendants, the World's enemies._  
  
"The Light does not force enmity," Dyne protested.  
  
_The Light creates the Darkness._  
  
"But not all Sorceresses become evil."  
  
_Not all acorns grow to oaks. This has no bearing on the acorn's fundamental truth._  
  
"Which is?"  
  
_With all its being, it wishes that it might._

-

_She is still and silent, turning infirmary bed to bier, and he is terrified that he has lost her.  
  
(Rinoa... you feel so cold.)  
  
"You were so full of life...."  
  
She is cold and still and corpselike and Dyne fights a thrill of pleasure at the thought.  
  
"I want to hear your voice."  
  
(This is like talking to a wall.)  
  
Futility weighs inside him like a swallowed stone, and it is not allowing him to leave.  
  
How sad.  
  
(I'll do whatever it takes.)  
  
He would die before he hurt her.  
  
He would die before he watched her die.  
  
But he wasn't given the choice, was he?  
  
(Rinoa... give me another chance.)  
  
(I can't even save Rinoa? Come on, think!)  
  
"You want to live, right? You want to go back and see everyone, right?"  
  
"And not become other people's memories?"  
  
The danger is not in becoming another's memory. The danger is in becoming your own.  
  
"I don't want the future. I want the present to stand still. I just want to stay here with you...."  
  
(Rinoa....)  
  
"...I can't stay with you any more, Squall."  
  
(...am I just supposed to let you go?)  
  
Dyne watches intently.  
  
She is terrified. **He **is terrified. Dyne watches intently.  
  
(I can't even save Rinoa? Come on, think!)  
  
"I should go now. ......I'm ready."  
  
(...this is what Rinoa decided. There's nothing I can do about it... right?)  
  
Dyne knows that he is wrong. It is the strength of a Knight, and he will die before he hurts her.  
  
(I'll... I'll be your knight.)  
  
He does not think when he goes to free her. He falls into it--caught in the gravity of the moment, moving inexorably toward the motion's conclusion.  
  
He sees the cable before him, and knows without wondering that it is the obstacle.  
  
He is armed and he draws without thinking; without thinking, he cuts._

-

The serpent watched him as he mined the land for magic more precious than gold or gems, as he pulled power to himself like some great heat-sink, a black hole miser who collects and collects and collects simply because _having_ is equated with _needing_. He watched as the ancient power, potent and heady as well-aged wine, washed over him and through him and about him and _became_ him. He _was_ a Power. A young god.  
  
_Dyne Ascendant._  
  
He did not stop his pulling--his thirst was not yet quenched, and might never be. "I am Dyne Ascendant, Power of the gods, God of the Power."  
  
The serpent regarded him. _This land is too dead for you. It is dry and filled with ghosts._  
  
"I will assume the ghosts. They will be _mine_."  
  
_Covetous, Dyne Ascendant._  
  
"You say these things as if they are sins."  
  
_Covet not, Dyne Ascendant. All things are toxic in excess._  
  
"There is no reason in your warning. I am doomed already. I am the mugger, murderer, and rapist. I am the Damned."  
  
_Damned and yet damnable. Lucem Fero, you already bear the Light._  
  
"And it shall shine brighter." Dyne's eyes were closed, his hands outstretched. "I am the world's enemy. This fact follows as the Shadow follows the light. There is no redemption, so I will live the part, and take the world's own life-blood if it will yield it to me."  
  
**_You_**_ will perish horribly._  
  
"I have _already_ perished horribly."  
  
_You are still alive._  
  
"I and my doom are one and the same." Dyne opened his eyes. "_You_ are a tempter and a deceiver."  
  
_I am as I am._  
  
"I don't believe you are."  
  
Summoning a Guardian Force was something he had read texts on and never done, but they were layman's experiences and had nothing to do with him. Laymen could summon great powers and they might come at their leisure; a Sorcerer, in the right mindset, could put out a Summons nothing could resist. And so the serpent flickered into existence before him, rearing high above him, far greater and stronger that Dyne's frail human body could ever be.  
  
Red eyes peered down at him, lurid and lewd. "Thissss isss mosst unwelcome, Assscendant," the dry voice said.  
  
"You are faithless," Dyne spoke--to him and _through_ him. "Without merit or virtue. You do not have it within you to _love_."  
  
"Nor within you to _be_ loved, Assssscendant."  
  
"Untrue." Dyne turned his back--exposing bare shoulders to killing fangs. "I will be loved... if not by you, than by others."  
  
"You cannot _forsssse_ love, Dyne. Who issss there who would love _you_?"  
  
"You are a liar and a fool, serpent," Dyne said. "Love is devotion, and you can force devotion."  
  
"You cannot--"  
  
"I am the Sorcerer, and I can. I can do whatever I want. I can make you die before you hurt me."  
  
"Thissss issss not love."  
  
"It is love without the fondness, and what time do I have for _that_ in the best of cases?" Dyne smiled. "Gravity tells us to love the earth and never leave her. When we realize we have no choice, the earth is loved. Gravity, serpent--if we could leap amongst the stars, we would leave this dreary place behind in an ecstasy of freedom. But we cannot, and so we name her _lush_ and _beautiful_. _Gravity_, serpent. The world will love me."  
  
The serpent was silent, and Dyne smiled at his victory.  
  
And for the first time, the serpent felt fear.

-

_(...this is what Rinoa decided. There's nothing I can do about it... right?)  
  
"It was Rinoa's decision. She was scared about being a sorceress... scared of being feared, hated."  
  
(Even if you end up as the world's enemy, I'll....)  
  
"Scared that no one would want to be around her... she said she couldn't handle that."  
  
(Rinoa....)  
  
"Rinoa, just stay close to me."  
  
It is not that he has no choice; it is not that he **perceives** no choice. It is that there is no choice to be had or perceived. He has entered the moment. He sees the obstacle, and he cuts.  
  
He cuts.  
  
He **cuts**.  
  
Then the two halves of the cable snap and fall away, and the Sorceress falls into his arms, and the moment is brought to an ending.  
  
And behind his smile, there is another.  
  
Dyne is watching, and believes he understands._


	3. Lest You Be Judged

Evil denotes the lack of good. Not every absence of good is an evil, for absence may be taken either in a purely negative or in a privative sense. Mere negation does not display the character of evil, otherwise nonexistents would be evil and moreover, a thing would be evil for not possessing the goodness of something else, which would mean that man is bad for not having the strength of a lion or the speed of a wild goat. But what is evil is privation; in this sense blindness means the privation of sight. _  
_  
- Thomas Aquinas

* * *

Dyne had been thinking as he moved through simple exercises on the cool midmorning dirt.  
  
"The Serpent," he said, "is not a noble animal. It is a low animal--low and base, like the worms. In great Centra, no noble house had a serpent as an emblem." Dyne balacned on the balls of his feet, moving through a kata all of his own. "But in the Kashkabald Desert where I found you, they were overjoyed to see serpents once. They saw in you all the possibilities of creation."  
  
_The Kashk were perhaps the wiser ones,_ the serpent leered.  
  
"What did they call you?"  
  
_That is immaterial._  
  
"I would like to know your name." He felt as if he was dancing, but he had never learned to dance. It was a conceit, and he was well aware of it.  
  
_Names can be powerful._  
  
"Only if you give them power, and I am powerful anyway." He spun, landing lightly on his feet time and time again. The sorcery flowed through him, flooding him with energy. "I think I am much like you, serpent--loved by few, reviled by many, fearsome and base but beautiful and deadly. I don't believe I want to be your enemy."  
  
_You are the world's enemy._  
  
"Are you a part of this world?"  
  
_Perhaps I am._  
  
"And perhaps you are not." Filled with momentum and vigor, he attempted a forward handspring. He failed painfully, and found himself looking up at the thin wisps of cloud in the sky while feeling minor lacerations all up and down his back. "Who are you?"  
  
The serpent hesitated, regarding him with wary distrust. _I am a tempter and a deceiver._  
  
"And I am a liar and a fool. Who are you?"  
  
_...I am Naja,_ the serpent replied. _Last lord of the Desert._  
  
"And I am Dyne," Dyne replied. "Simple Dyne, once simpler Jared Tomaggru. We shall be friends before too long."  
  
_I doubt that, Dyne Ascendant._ The serpent's voice was cold. _I doubt that very much._  
  
Dyne smiled. "I knew you would."

-

_They are standing together under moonlight and the stars are in her eyes. Dyne frowns to see them so contented. He dislikes the potential for a happy ending.  
  
A happy ending cannot exist if what is happy is not the end.  
  
(I'll be your knight.)  
  
The Knight is sleeping.  
  
The Knight is waking on the morning of a new day. The world is fresh and new and scarred and old and bitter around him. He knows it too well to think that he wakes victorious.  
  
"Time. It will not wait. No matter... how hard you hold on...."  
  
They are floating together against the the blood of the moonlight and the stars are all around them, breathing precariously and trying to hold on.  
  
"You want to live, right? You want to go back and see everyone, right?"  
  
"I don't want the future. I want the present to stand still. I just want to stay here with you...."  
  
Time will not wait. It escapes them, and--  
  
(...this is what Rinoa decided. There's nothing I can do about it... right?)  
  
And--  
  
"Squall's sword will pierce my heart...."  
  
And--  
  
"What do you think you're doing?"  
  
"Haven't you done enough? I know you're not like that!"  
  
And--  
  
And--  
  
And--  
  
Dyne waits and watches intently, murder in his eyes.  
  
"Reflect upon your childhood. Your sensation... your words... your emotion..."  
  
(Perhaps we were born... only to fight?)  
  
SeeD is sworn to kill the Sorceress. That much, everyone knows.  
  
"I see. Interesting."  
  
"We've come to take back--"  
  
His enemy raises the sword, and cuts downward. He will bear that scar for life.  
  
"Thanks to you, I feel like I can take on anyone."  
  
There are knights and there are nights and there are Knights, and Odin rides out of the storm and the thunder to challenge him. "Knight errant."  
  
Time---it will not wait.  
  
It is running out too quickly, and Odin has all the power to kill them all.  
  
"Well, this is how it turned out."  
  
"You've become the Sorceress'--"  
  
"Knight. This has always been my dream."  
  
There are knights and nights and Knights....  
  
"Squall, you're mine!"  
  
Odin rides out of the storm and the thunder. "ZANTETSUKEN."  
  
His enemy raises the sword, and the mounted Knight is cut in half. Incredible. The GFs embodied such power, and now--  
  
**"Huh? Was it you...?"**_****

-

Dyne startled out of his immersion in Squall's memories, a strangled cry caught in his throat. He couldn't escape the usual unsettled feelings any more than he usually could--but now there was something new; the afterimpression of staring eyes, a challenging voice not his own, not Naja's, and _not_ Squall's.  
  
He was shuddering in the afternoon warmth--quaking at the thought of being _discovered_. Death had brushed its tattered cloak against him, and he had escaped by the narrowest of margins.  
  
The serpent was hissing a quiet chuckle in the back of his mind. _You have garnered enemies already, Dyne Ascendant._  
  
"What--what _was_ that?" Dyne held the ragged blanket tighter around him. "That wasn't--wasn't _natural_--"  
  
_You think to sneak into empty houses when the master is long gone. You do not remember the master's pets and friends._  
  
Dyne swallowed. "A Force--"  
  
_A Force more powerful than you, Dyne Ascendant._  
  
Dyne shook his head. "Impossible. No such power exists--"  
  
_But I did not say a **power**, sorcerer. I said a Force._  
  
"Even Odin was defeated. There is no insurmountable foe."  
  
Naja laughed. _Odin realized himself to fight on his enemy's ground. I would not suggest engaging Gilgamesh on his own. You will most certainly die._  
  
"There is _no_ insurmountable foe," Dyne repeated like a mantra.  
  
_Perhaps not. But there are foes insurmountable by you, Dyne Ascendant._

-

Dyne did not know the man's name, nor his profession. What he knew was that he was walking out in the badlands after dark, with a lantern and a heavy pack on his shoulders. The pack would have snapped Dyne in half. The man wore it as if it were full of feathers.  
  
Dyne watched him from the safety of deep shadows, eyes trained on ever slight movement the man made. He was being sized up, appreciated--judged.  
  
Dyne judged him adequate.  
  
The man has never seen a Sorceress. He had certainly never seen a Sorcerer. When Dyne stepped out of the shadows into a blinding display of light, when the great Serpent was Summoned behind him, the man recoiled and fell to his knees.  
  
One did not run from a Bearer of Light. There would be no escape.  
  
"This is my land," Dyne said, "and my lair. You tread uninvited. I could strike you down with impunity. Do you understand me?"  
  
The man shuddered. He might have been powerful in comparison to other men, but Dyne was so far unlike other men as to allow no comparison. "I--I'm sorry, I didn't know--"  
  
"You did not, which is why I spare you for the moment. But you are in the serpent's hole, stranger--you stare at its fangs. Do you understand?"  
  
"I--I do, sir, forgive me--"  
  
"I am the Sorcerer, Dyne Ascendant."  
  
The man nodded. "I can see, sir--that is, I believe it."  
  
"No living eye has seen the Sorcerer except the Sorcerer's themselves--and now you have beheld me. But I think I may spare you. Do you wish me to?"  
  
"Yes! Please!"  
  
"Good." Dyne looked down at the man of such incredible girth--who was shaking and cowering before him. "I have the terms. Will you accept them?"  
  
The man nodded frantically, eyes wide in terror and flicking from Dyne to the serpent and back again as if they were one and the same and he could not tell from which the questions were coming. He opened his mouth to affirm again, and then closed it in favor of another spate of nods.  
  
Dyne smiled a smile without warmth or mercy. "You will serve me. You will _love_ me. You will be my second. My Lieutenant... for now." 


	4. Devotion

And bear unmov'd the wrongs of base mankind,  
The last and hardest conquest of the mind. _  
_  
- Alexander Pope

* * *

There was nothing to distinguish one day from those preceding or following it in the wastelands. Centra drank up distinction, kept it and held it like a sponge made of sand and dry dirt, wind and dry heat. It was not a jealous land, but a tired one--it had lost long ago all will to be.

The dawn was colorless. The air was bitter, lukewarm and stagnant.

Dyne walked beneath a sky more grey than blue, heart bared to the world that would see him hunted and slaughtered. The world that would love him in time. The world that would adore him, revere him, if only because it had no choice.

_(There is no choice to be had.)_

His lieutenant approached him, clearly in awe even when the thin light of dawn revealed him as the fragile being he was. He paused some paces away, unsure whether to kneel or stand. "My lord--"

Dyne turned to him. "My slave."

The man's hands twisted around one another, his eyes shifted uneasily. "My lord, I have a question."

"Then ask it."

"Last night, I--and forgive me, my lord, once again, I trespassed without knowing, but last night--" he swallowed. "I accepted your terms, my lord--with all my heart, I do, I accept them! But I wondered--I wanted to know--"

"You would know your task, then?" Dyne's gaze was piercing. "You would learn the full scope of your loyalty?"

"Y-yes."

Dyne smiled, and stretched out his hand. "Then I will show you."

With a strong mental grip he reached out and took the man--split asunder any last threads of defiance, any barriers to his own will. The man gasped, body jerking uncontrolled--Dyne sifted mental fingers through his thoughts, taking in the texture of his mind. _(Not like Leonhart's. But for now, I do not need it to be.)_

His smile widened, lips pulling back over glinting teeth. "Do you love me, my second?"

His Lieutenant was on his knees, head pulled roughly back and face to the sky, mouth and eyes open wide in rapture or agony or some middling thing, gasping as his mind crumpled like a banknote, like some fleeting figment of nightmares or dreams--twisted and slamming down deep in him so that he could only choke on its ruins, thick and dark like blood and dying. Dyne watched him, hungering at the sight.

"I am Dyne," he spoke, orating magnificently for the sake of the caught and enthralled. "Great Hyne's Descendant, mugger, murderer--and lord. This much, all shall know. I bear the Light."

And what was _that_, again?

He smiled, and it was a thin serpent smile against the atrocity of wasteland and dry wind.

"No Knight exists there to hinder me, no Sorceress exists there to dim me..." he forced his will deeper upon the man, watching him in his weakness--watching as he strained for breath and reason, as he clutched at the tattered threads of sanity Dyne left him. Dyne felt a thrill of pleasure at the sight. "Even should I become the world's enemy--"

_Covet not._

"--I am Dyne Ascendant, Power of the Gods, God of the Powers--"

_Judge not._ The serpent's words were thin like the scent of drought rain on a still wind. The Lieutenant's lips were taut with a silent scream.

"And the world is mine, as you are, in fealty, in duty--and in love."

_Tempter and deceiver._

_Damned and damnable._

_Base and bestial._

And his Lieutenant cried out once, a sharp call against the starkness, a choked gasp of ecstasy--so strange, so unnatural that Dyne's heart skipped and skipped again, a biting tattoo against his ribs and lungs. The sound of scales on smooth scales hissed inside his mind, and he laughed in a sadistic, childlike glee.

_Dyne Ascendant._

"And all the world shall love me," he said, walking to the man as if he walked over a carpet of petals, as if the dry shifting dust was soft as velvet and rich as silk beneath his bare toes. He slid his hand over his Lieutenant's crown, twining his thin fingers in dark thick hair, beaming down as any lord might appraise a beloved pet. "They shall love me as you do. All the world."

And man and serpent were silent before him.

-

_"Face my wrath for seeking thy sealed power."_

_Things of ancience, things so terrible that once buried the world forgot them. Only Sorcery bid them rise and move--only the Light made the shadows dance._

_"Face my wrath--"_

_SeeD is sworn a sacrificial oath. There are knights and nights and Knights, and then there is death._

_"--my wrath--"_

_And every strike, every parry, every desperate attack brings him closer to dying--or to killing and breaking, cutting and piercing, doom echoing back within memory and the creeping, terrible fear._

_SeeD is sworn to kill the Sorceress. This much, everyone knows._

_"--for seeking--"_

_Odin rides out of the storm and the thunder. Odin dies._

_"--thy sealed--"_

_The moon shines brightly through the clouds on the gargoyles below, on the seated queen in her crimson robes. Xerampelinae._

_"--power."_

_Kurse all SeeDs._

_He should know by now that it is a vain crusade._

_Curse all SeeDs--_

_Dyne is not afraid and tells himself this over and over, holding it like a lantern against the implacable dark. SeeD is sworn to kill the Sorceress. All in vain. Sorcery is immortal and interminable. Given that, all bearers are equal._

_Time will not wait. The hour grows near. Soon, soon enough, the world will love him._

_Leonhart will love him, and die before he hurts him._

_He dips into his mind like an ablution. His sensations, his words, his thoughts, his emotions..._

_He laughs and sinks deeper, as if the memories are his own. And how are they not?_

_How sad._

_Even if he becomes the world's enemy--_

_"I'll be your knight."_

_And to Dyne's ears, the words can only be for him._


End file.
